New Delhi, Oct. 9: A city court has directed Delhi police to submit a report on an anticipatory bail petition by Bhangra pop star Daler Mehndi in a visa-racket case filed by Punjab police.

Mehndi had moved the anticipatory bail plea yesterday, fearing that Punjab police personnel, believed to be in the capital, might arrest him.

Additional district and sessions judge A.K. Mehndiratta today ordered that the station house officer of Nangloi submit a report on the case to him on Monday. Mehndi is a resident of Nangloi, which is in outer Delhi.

Mehndi’s lawyer, Inder Singh Josh, said the application sought two weeks to move an appropriate bail application before the Punjab court hearing the visa-racket case.

The Bhangra pop star sought interim bail on the grounds that his reputation and business will take a beating if he was arrested.

In his petition, Mehndi said he had learnt through media reports that Patiala police have registered a case against him and his brother Shamsher Singh Shera, who was later arrested.

The petition clarified that Mehndi had disowned Shamsher in 2001. The singer said that — in a public notice issued in an English national daily on March 2, 2001 — he had “notified his brother to desist from impersonating him and had also advised public at-large not be misled by such impersonations/misrepresentations”.

Mehndi alleged that Patiala police are associating him in the case with the “mala fide intentions to gain media hype and tarnish” his reputation.

The singer termed the criminal registered against him false and baseless.

and alleged in the petition that the police was acting on behalf of certain people who have a grudge against the applicant.

Claiming that Mehndi was innocent, the petition said that the stage artist will join the investigation as and when required by the Punjab police and would not leave the country without their permission. He also gave commitment to the court that he would not hamper any evidence.